AT&T hopes for iPhone to be synonymous with the company in five year exclusive

Apple’s iPhone is arguably this year’s most hotly
anticipated consumer device. AT&T already accelerated its plans to
rebrand the Cingular properties in preparation of the iPhone’s arrival – and apparently,
its efforts may be well placed as the iPhone could be an AT&T-exclusive for
five years, according to a USA
Today story.

Being an AT&T-exclusive means that the iPhone will
remain a GSM phone, leaving it clearly out of reach for CDMA wireless users. Verizon
Wireless and Sprint are both CDMA shops, and customers of those carriers who
wish to get the iPhone will have no other choice but to make the move to
AT&T.

T-Mobile is another GSM carrier in the U.S., and its network
would likely be able to support the iPhone’s calling features, but AT&T
will be the only company authorized to officially sell and market the iPhone.
Furthermore, all iPhone’s sold through AT&T will be ‘locked’ to the
network, disallowing those phones to connect to another carrier even with a
different SIM card.

"I'm glad we have (the iPhone) in our bag," says Stan
Sigman, CEO of wireless at AT&T. "Others will try to match it, but for
a period of time, they're going to be playing catch-up."

According to data collected by Forrester Research, about 78
percent of U.S. households have a mobile phone. Charles Golvin, an analyst at
Forrester, believes anybody who wants a cell phone has one. The other 22 percent
without cell phones, he says, "are the very young, the very old and the
economically challenged" – none of which are target markets for the
iPhone.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

You have to love the language people make up to try to be politically correct. I, personally, am hype machine challenged, so I have an inherent tendency to wait and see if this phone will be the "must-have" gadget of the year.

quote: The other 22 percent without cell phones, he says, "are the very young, the very old and the economically challenged"

Okay, I'm just shy of 45, so I'm definitely not very young or very old, and I earn over $50K a year, so I'm not economically challenged......

Perhaps the reason why I don't have a cell phone is because I don't want one??? Everyone I know, that I wish to speak with on the phone, knows my home phone number. If I'm not home, talk to my answering machine, or send me an e-mail! If it's really important, call me at work during the day!

But other than that, I have no reason for anyone to call me at all times of the day or night, irregardless of where I am. Some people might consider that to be a sad state of affairs, and wouldn't understand how someone in the 21st century can live without a phone strapped to their head, 24/7.

uhh... the neat thing about cell phones is that they have an 'off' button.. so you can actually choose when to take calls or not. Also... unlike with a home phone, you can take a cell phone out of your house and talk on it wherever. Emergency?... too bad for you that you aren't home and don't have access to your land line or your email.

I, on the otherhand, do not have a home phone and use my cell instead. I was like you and didn't get a cell phone till I needed one... you don't really know what you're missing till you have one. I actually think I have more freedom.

I agree with the above poster. I don't have a home phone because I don't need one. My cell lets me talk when and where ever I want. If I don't want to talk to anyone, I turn it off or don't answer. Not to mention that cell phones have free long distance calling while land lines do not. Unless of course you get a broadband phone but that costs as much as a cell phone contract and goes out if the power does. At least with a cell phone or a land line, you can still make calls (course the cell phone requires the tower to have power but rarely do those go without power).